[felson]

I'm not going to try to defend David's argument as I think he may have assumed that you are not also posting a straddle. But I don't understand this comment.

[ QUOTE ]
The antes have gotten larger in relation to the future betting. Therefore, you should play looser.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true in 7 stud or in NL tournaments when actual antes are used, because the antes create favorable preflop pot odds. But in a straddled game, your pot odds are the exactly the same as they would have been in a non-straddled game (with the minor difference that there are three forced posts in the straddled game). So this is not a reason to play looser.

You should play looser postflop, because the pot is bloated. But that reasoning doesn't apply preflop.

In addition, your implied odds are worse in straddled pots. So starting hand requirements should be slanted towards hands likely to win at showdown and away from implied odds-type hands -- as your K9 example suggests (I wonder whether this is profitable in EP - this would be useful knowledge in shortstacked situations). But I don't see why it would increase the proportion of hands played.